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Our Large DIY Planter on wheels {tutorial}

We recently shared our DIY planter tutorial over at Tidy Mom a few weeks ago. My dad and I built this for our covered porch makeover a couple months ago on a Saturday afternoon. I remember when I first asked him if we could make a wooden planter and as usual his response was, “why can’t you just go buy one?” Well dad, “I want to make one!” He thinks I am out of my mind and enjoy torturing him with DIY projects. hehe.

So here we go, our large DIY planter on wheels tutorial:

First, decide if your planter will be an indoor or outdoor planter. Our’s is an outdoor planter so we needed to use pressure treated wood. If you are making a planter for indoors, you can use pine or any other type of wood that is suitable for indoor use.

Step 1: Cut your base (bottom of your planter). We cut (2) 11″ x 36″ pieces of 2″ x 6″ pressure treated wood. I wanted the base to be a little thicker then the sides so we used 2″ thick pressure treated wood for the base only. The rest of the planter (sides and top) is 1″ thick pressure treated wood. (below are the pieces of wood we used to make the planter)

NOTE: This planter is made out of scrap wood that we had left over from a previous project. When you are purchasing your pressure treated wood (any local home improvement store), you can use any thickness but I would recommend at least 1 inch thickness. Keep in mind, because we used scrap wood, we ended up needing to cleat the base together. You will most likely be able to eliminate this step as you will simply purchase the wood at the desired width, unless of course, you need to use up scrap wood like us!

Step 2: Next we cut three pieces of 1″ x 8″ at 11″ long as cleats. The cleats are what will hold your planter together. Space them accordingly (as shown below) and screw them to your base. Keep in mind that you need to stagger your screws (as shown below) so that you do not split the wood. A little tip I learned from my dad!

NOTE: We could have used our biscuit machine in place of cleats but not every home owner has a biscuit machine so this method is the easiest and quickest that anyone can do!

Step 3:Flip your base over so the cleat-ed part is face down. Next we made side cleats (legs) in order to have something to nail the sides of the planter to. We cut four pieces of 1″ x 8″ at 12 inches long as the cleats. We used a finish gun with 1 3/4″ galvanized finish nails (they won’t rust) to adhere the cleats to the base and then reinforced with screws. You will need to nail and screw the cleats on an angle. See below how we essentially made legs.

NOTE: be sure to use nails and screws that will not rust when constructing anything for outdoors.

Step 4: Next we cut four pieces for our sides at 37 1/4″ (longer sides) as well as four pieces at 11″ long (smaller sides) and screwed them to the cleats. This creates the sides of your planter.

You may need to use a hammer to tap the boards into place once you have adhered with your finish nails. We completed the planter by reinforcing with screws.

This is where my dad got annoyed with me. He thought we were finished but I wanted to trim out the top and sides to give the planter a more finished look. I’m all about aesthetics, he is not!

Step 5: We created the top by cutting four pieces at a 45 degree angle. If you do not have a miter saw (chop saw) to cut your angles, most home improvement stores (Lowes and Home Depot) will cut all the wood for you. Just be sure to bring your exact measurements with you.

Nail and screw the top trim pieces to your planter. We left a 1″ over hang on the outside.

We also cut 2″ strips to add a trim detail to each side and along the bottom. I filled all the holes with spackle and used paintable exterior caulking to fill in the gaps and seams.

After about an hour of sanding, here is the finished product.

Here is the planter painted in a bright white exterior paint filled with blooming flowers. The opening at the top fits two 10″ round planters or a 36″ window box. You will need to drill holes in the bottom of the planter for drainage.

I also decided to add wheels (purchased at Home Depot) to the base to make the planter movable. I purchased 4 wheels from Home Depot and added them to underneath part with 1 ” galvanized screws.

Making your own wooden planter can save you hundreds of dollars. In fact, the one I found online that looks exactly like this, was $498!

This planter is very substantial and heavy (pressure treated wood is heavy) so the wheels are the perfect addition to this planter to make it easy to move from place to place. If you choose to add wheels, make sure you get the ones that are outdoor/rust proof. These wheels are for a max capacity of 125 lbs. I didn’t need that much weight capacity but I wanted be able to see the wheels so these worked perfectly.

Here is the rest of the covered porch that we shared a few weeks ago.

Our covered porch makeover consisted of our DIY curtain rod tutorial and our large DIY planter on wheels. If you are looking for an inexpensive way to hang outdoor curtains, be sure you checkout our tutorial using electrical supplies to make a rod. The electricians in the world will roll their eyes but you will save a bundle! I showed my dad the first image in this post and how I used his picture, he said, “why are you putting me on your blog?!” haha. He has no idea he is posted all over the internet in many posts. Oooops :).

Comments

Do the pots fit in, or do you need to set them on something? I guess I'm asking if the planter is too deep for the plants to peek out of the top.
By the way, your porch looks so much like ours at home, it's spooky. Thank you for the terrific site.

What you see in these are pictures are two 10" pots that fit right in and the outside of the plastic planter(the lip) fits right on the wooden part of the wooden planter. I hope that made sense.... OR you it fits a 36" long plastic window box planter , the lip of the planter sits right on top :) I suppose you could also fill it with dirt and plant away right? :)

Oh, I love those! I have already bought some wood, wanting to build some myself, but it has been sitting in the garage for half a year now, ha ha. Yours look great, they'd be perfect for our garden as well :-)

Love that and have bookmarked the tuitorial. I have a question for you. You have annuals planted in it, that's a deep flowerbox, are they sitting on a shelf inside the box inside a metal or plastic flowerbox? Or do you actually have them planted in soil that deep in the flowerbox your DH or Dad made for you? I've seen people build a deep planter like that but put like a shelf to hold a liner so they can interchange plants according to season without actually taking them out of the pots that the plants come in, they just sit them down in the flowerbox liner. great job! That's going on my list for 2014. My husband has an electric compound miter saw aka chop saw that I want him to teach me how to use it. This would be a great excuse! I'd use pressure treated lumber so I can leave it outside in the lelements and bring it inside in the garage in winter.

They are actually 10" planters inside. The lip of the plastic part of the planter is resting on the edge of the wooden planter we made :) You could also fill with soil but the plastic planters fit right in there. Yes, you could make a shelf for sure!

Hi! this is a terrific project for left over pieces of wood, which we have plenty of! We're redoing a master bath so I'm sure we'll have a few pieces to work with already. Your porch looks awesome. I often "torture" my husband as well, when "I" do projects ;-)

Thank you for the tutorial on this palnter. It was exactly what I was looking for. I am happy to say the planter looks just like yours (except all white) and my husband completed it in one afternoon with no problem. I filled it with pink impatients in a 36 inch planter box liner found at Home Depot. I did have to put a concrete block under the planter to raise it to be the same height as the lip of the planter. I am already looking forward to filling it with mums, kale and pumpkins for Fall. Thanks again.
I look forward to reading about your family adventures each day!
Your neighbor in Milford,
Robin

Hi! What were the measurements on the trim? I'm trying to put together a list of supplies and measurements to build my own planter, but as a DIY newbie, its proving to be quiet difficult to figure out!

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